‘Jacob.’ Wet arms wrapped around his neck. A cold cheek pressed against his. Fox’s red hair, which stuck to her face, was so wet that it looked almost black. Jacob squeezed her tight and could feel her heartbeat through their wet clothes. He didn’t dare let her go, afraid the waves would wash her away again.
‘You have the head?’
‘Yes.’
‘We have to get away from here.’
Away to where? Jacob looked around. What was Dunbar going to think when he opened his paper in the morning? Iron ships, aeroplanes, bombs falling from the skies . . . would he wonder whether they’d drowned with the head? Would he finally begin to fear the new magic of technology as much as he feared that of the Witch Slayer?
‘The coast can’t be far. We were sailing southeast for hours.’
Whatever she said. The planes were gone, but there would definitely not be any rescue mission.
‘Come.’ Fox pulled him with her. She seemed certain in which direction the coast lay.
Swim, Jacob.
The smoke followed them for a long time. The smoke. The debris. The cries for help. But finally there was nothing around them but the sea, heaving like a giant animal digesting all the bodies it had just drowned. Fox looked at him with concern. She was a good swimmer, but Jacob’s arms were getting heavy, and every wave left him gasping for air. Fox came to swim by his side, but he only got slower and slower. Don’t hold on to her, Jacob! He would pull her down with him. His skin was numb, and he felt himself losing consciousness.
‘Jacob!’ Fox wrapped her arms around him and pulled his head out of the water. ‘You won’t make it to the shore. Let yourself sink. Do you hear?’
Sink? What was she talking about? He tried to breathe, but even the air seemed to be made of salt water.
‘It’s your only chance. They don’t come to the surface.’
They? Fox pulled him down before he could understand what she meant. Water rushed into his mouth and nose. He tried to resist, but Fox wouldn’t let go. She pulled him deeper and deeper, no matter how much he struggled. Jacob tried to push her away – he wanted to breathe, only breathe – but then suddenly he felt other hands. Warm and slender, like the hands of children. They pushed one of their scales into his mouth, and his lungs began to breathe water as though they’d never done anything else. The bodies floating around him and Fox were transparent, like frosted glass. Fish or human – they were both. The Lotharainians called them Mal de Mer, but they had a different name on every coast. It was said that they capsized boats to take the souls of the dead to their cities at the bottom of the sea. The Empress had a specimen of a Mal de Mer in her Chambers of Miracles, but death had turned its crystalline beauty into dull wax.
They swarmed around Fox as though she were one of them, weaving flowers into her hair, stroking her face, but she would not let go of Jacob, and when they tried to pull him deeper, she pushed the naiads away. It was like a dance between her and them, until at some point Jacob felt a wave wash him on to firm ground. He felt damp sand, shells crushing between his fingers. His eyes burnt from the salty water, but he managed to open them to see clouds and a grey sky above. Fox was crouched next to him. She was also too weak to get to her feet, but they dragged each other along, away from the water’s hissing waves that still sounded so hungry, until, exhausted, they finally dropped side by side on to the sand.
Jacob spat out the scale the Mal de Mer had pushed between his lips, and he greedily gulped the damp air into his burning lungs. It was salty and cold and more delicious than anything he’d ever tasted.
Breathing. Just to be breathing.
Fox reached for the blossoms the Mal de Mer had put into her hair. Underwater they’d shone in all the colours of the rainbow, but now they were wilted and dull. Fox threw them into the waves as if trying to give them back their life. Then she knelt down again next to Jacob and dug her hands deep into the grey sand.
‘That was close.’ Her voice sounded as though she couldn’t believe that they were still alive.
Alive. Jacob reached under his wet shirt, but all his fingers found was the moth.
The swindlesack with the head was gone.
Fox smiled as she put her hand up her sleeve. She pulled out the sack and threw it on to his chest.
The gloves, like his backpack, had been claimed by the sea. Still, as Jacob put his hand into the sack and touched the golden hair, all he felt as was a slight tingling. Swindlesacks could dampen black magic, though Jacob had never seen such a strong effect. It didn’t matter . . . he had the head. He could only hope that the Goyl had been less successful in the meantime. Jacob tied up the sack and looked at the sky, where a few hungry gulls circled among the clouds. In his mind’s eye, he could still see the red aeroplanes diving at the burning ships.
‘Why did the Mal de Mer help us?’
Fox was wiping the sand from her bare arms. She’d pulled her dress off in the water, and now she was just wearing the one of fur. She wore it beneath her clothes whenever things might get dangerous, but this time it wasn’t the vixen who had saved them, but her human self.
‘They usually only help women,’ she said. ‘When I was a child they saved my mother’s sister. Normally, they take the men with them, and I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to protect you from them, but without their help, you would have drowned.’ Fox smiled. ‘Luckily, they realised I wasn’t going to let them have you without a fight.’
Yes, luckily. She was so fearless, it sometimes scared him. Jacob sat up. He could only hope the hand and the heart would be easier to find. Not that he really expected they would be. He looked around. Steep sandy cliffs and a pebbly beach. A lighthouse in the distance.
‘Do you know where we are?’
Fox nodded. ‘I grew up not far from here. I asked the Mal de Mer to take us here. We’re in Lotharaine, just a few miles from the Flandrian border.’ She got to her feet. ‘We’d better see that we move on, though. The fishermen here are not very friendly towards strangers. You still have the gold handkerchief? We’ll need money for horses and new clothes.’
Jacob reached into his pocket. The handkerchief was soaking wet, but Earlking’s card dropped from his pocket as dry and untouched as though it had just snuck into his hand. Fox gave the card a nervous look, but it was blank except for Earlking’s name. The card was pearly white, as though the sea had washed away the ink. Jacob shooed away a little spider that had crawled from his pocket, then he tucked the card away again. He still wanted to throw it away, but ever since he’d seen Will’s name on it, the card felt like a connection to his brother – even though Jacob knew the notion was irrational.
The handkerchief usually worked even when it was wet, but Jacob had to rub it for what seemed an eternity before it finally released one paper-thin coin. Yes, he really needed a new one, but these handkerchiefs weren’t easy to find.
Jacob poured out the water from his boots. ‘How many times has it been now?’ He got to his feet.
‘How many times has what been?’ Fox could also barely stand. They were both shivering in their wet clothes.
‘That you saved my skin.’
Fox smiled as she brushed the sand off his back. ‘I think we’re nearly even.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR